


The Mess We're In

by Esinde Nayrall (red_squared)



Series: The Scorching One [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: rs_small_gifts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:30:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_squared/pseuds/Esinde%20Nayrall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Wormtail lives with his mother, and probably still thinks that clean underwear grows in bedroom cupboards.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mess We're In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [on_wax](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=on_wax).



> Written for [](http://rs-small-gifts.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://rs-small-gifts.livejournal.com/)**rs_small_gifts** 2011 and originally posted [here](http://rs-small-gifts.livejournal.com/143152.html).
> 
> Thanks to [](http://midnitemaraud-r.livejournal.com/profile)[**midnitemaraud_r**](http://midnitemaraud-r.livejournal.com/)  and [](http://mindabbles.livejournal.com/profile)[**mindabbles**](http://mindabbles.livejournal.com/)  for holding my hand/putting up with me through this -- the fic evolved kinda rapidly (oh, did it ever evolve) and all errors are my own, the mods for their infinite patience and of course, my recipient, [](http://on-wax.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://on-wax.livejournal.com/)**on_wax** for such an awesome prompt ("Ummm ... a Remus who hates cleaning and is a total slob/like Sirius in most other fic? I'd actually love that.") -- I hope you enjoy it!

“Lily does the same thing. It drives me mad,” McKinnon says. “It’s probably because Lupin was brought up Muggle, isn’t it?”

“Remus’ father was a pureblood -- ”

“Oh shut up, Black, I’m not talking about blood purity. I’m talking about how someone’s been raised. It doesn’t matter who or what his parents were -- if Lupin was brought up Muggle, then when he thinks about cleaning up after himself, he’s going to think of soap, hot water, feather dusters, and who knows what all. And then he’s going to think that that’s all too much work for right now and he’ll get up and do it in a minute. I told you -- Lily’s the same. They think ‘soap and scrubbing’, not ‘swish and flick’.

“That and...” McKinnon pauses and glances around meaningfully. Sirius takes a look around the treatment room as well, to see if he can work out what she’s getting at. “Unlike you, he doesn’t work in a hospital. Things don’t need to be sterilised or disinfected or scourgified until they’re bright and white once more.”

Her expression suggests that there’s more she wants to say, but she shuts her mouth almost as soon as she’s opened it.

This surprises him, as she’s never been known to bite her tongue before. Being Lily’s best friend, she could get away with saying pretty much anything she wanted, since James would have had a fit if Sirius had retaliated in anyway. And taking up with Peter has only made McKinnon even more blunt and caustic and tactless.

“And here I always thought you were a bright boy, Black,” Healer Dearborn says from behind him.

McKinnon has the grace to look slightly shamefaced at not warning Sirius in time -- some Auror cadet _she_ is.

“It looks like your fingers are healing up well, Marlene,” Dearborn says. It is polite and solicitous, and clearly the beginning of a dismissal.

Sirius listens to their conversation with half an ear, but is considering what McKinnon’s said. He has trouble believing that Evans is anywhere near as messy as Remus can be from what he’s seen of the flat that she and McKinnon share. But then Evans doesn’t work from home the way Remus does.

More time at home could be interpreted as more time to clean, but Sirius suspects that in the case of Evans, as with Remus, it means more time to accumulate dirty cups, unfinished lunches, apple cores, and towering piles of books that are held open by other books that are held open by yet other books that are held open by pot plants or soup plates or sandwiches or whatever else Remus has to hand when his mind is elsewhere.

_Ugh._

They’ve already had the argument about the way Remus treats -- no, _mistreats_ his things, to the point where some of his belongings are only a couple of months old before they’re battered or scuffed or frayed. After seven years at Hogwarts, and nearly four months of sharing a flat with Sirius, Remus still doesn’t seem to understand that if you don’t use spell work to fix something right away, it’s not as effective afterward.

Still. Remus is careful with Sirius’ things, and if he’s careless with his own, well... Remus’ things are _Remus’_ things and Sirius has no right to get upset about how he treats them.

Where all of that breaks down is when it comes to the flat, which belongs to both of them. They’ve already had one spectacular argument about Remus being a scruffy sloven and Sirius being a pedantic fusspot.

Remus still denies it, but Sirius is pretty certain that Remus was prepared to move out permanently over that. Against that sort of perspective, a couple of mouldy apple cores that can be swished and flicked away doesn’t seem like much, except that it’s always _Sirius_ doing the swishing and flicking, and --

“Have you heard a word I’ve said, Black?”

He comes back to himself, and notices that McKinnon has left.

“Er...”

Dearborn gives him an impatient look -- he hates having to repeat himself. It’s one of the reasons he’d picked Sirius as his trainee.

“You’re studying to be a Healer, Black. If you only treat the symptoms, you’ll be treating them forever. Find the cause, and treat that. You’ll only need to do it once.” Sirius wonders if they’re still discussing McKinnon’s fingers. He’s about to ask how to treat the cause when she was injured by a Dark spell cast by a masked wizard when Dearborn adds, “The clutter is a symptom. Stop cleaning it up, and treat the cause.”

“How do I do that, then?”

“That’s an interesting question,” Dearborn says. “Unfortunately, I don’t get paid to dispense advice to warring flat mates. Here,” he adds, handing Sirius a scroll. “Delphine’s back, and insisting she needs to be admitted. Set up the usual tests and once you’ve confirmed that the only thing that’s wrong with her is her overactive imagination, send her on her way.”

“But I should come and get you if there is actually something wrong?”

“Get one of the third years to treat her,” Dearborn says on his way out. “Let her Floo _them_ eleven times a week with unimaginatively imaginary symptoms.”

Sirius sighs and unravels the scroll to see what her latest list of complaints are. The tests will be time consuming, so he’s not likely to be able to leave any time soon, but that’s all right. A task that is time consuming but not onerous will give him plenty of time to think over everything McKinnon and Dearborn have suggested.

~*~

“Did McKinnon speak to you today?” he asks Remus, after he’s let himself in.

The windows are open to air out the flat, and there’s a faint scent of _Scourgify_ about the place.

“Good evening to you, too,” Remus replies, turning to face him. Both of his hands are full of parchment. “Not McKinnon, but her beloved dropped by for a cup of tea and a chastisement.”

“Ah.” He hopes Remus isn’t too cross with him for telling McKinnon as much as he has.

“But that’s not what’s brought on all this industry,” Remus says. He turns back to the parchment, shuffles it about and then sets one stack aside.

“No?”

“I finished the first draft of my paper today.”

“You -- That’s wonderful!”

“Yeah. I finally found my copy of Deagle’s 1964 article this morning.”

“The sandwich article?” Sirius asks guiltily.

“The very same,” Remus says.

Scamander’s painstaking documentation of the development of Cornish pixies dates back to 1920. The ‘sandwich article’ was a 1964 paper by Desmond Deagle, which contained the only known addition to Scamander’s initial findings, and that was that Cornish pixies exhibited seven instars to sexual maturity. This discovery would have shaken the study of pixie biology had anyone actually cared, since all previous studies had unanimously agreed that there were only four.

Remus had found a copy of the article in one of his father’s numerous almanacs that are littered around the flat, and marked his place with a sandwich. Sirius has no doubt Remus meant to remove the sandwich and replace it with something less prone to going mouldy and mank, but Remus had moved on to the practical observation of pixie development and maturation. While Remus’ clutch of pixies had hatched and matured, so had the mould on the sandwich.

In one of his periodic cleaning fits, Sirius had banished the sandwich, scourgified the mould and closed the book. And of course, that would happen in the same week Remus remembered the article, remembered he wanted the article, remembered he’d marked it with a sandwich, but couldn’t remember what book it was in, who it was by or what the finding was.

_All right, maybe he was justified in being a **little** bit annoyed, but he didn’t need to move back in with his mother over something like that._

“When can I read the draft?”

“Any time you like,” Remus grins, indicating a newer and crisper scroll of parchment. “So. Wormtail tells me I need to remember I’m a wizard.”

“I didn’t say -- ”

“I know you didn’t,” Remus says. He actually sounds fond, which suggests that Sirius can’t be in too much trouble over this.

_Fucking McKinnon. I should have put a permanent sticking charm on her lips._

“They should look at changing the rules on underage magic,” Sirius says, because he’s been thinking about this all evening. “When I went home for the holidays, I’d still do spell work and not be detected because my family were all magical. But you and Evans wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“Yeah, Wormtail didn’t put it quite like that, but it’s true that I only think about using magic when I’m somewhere... When...” Remus sighs. “It’s not something I associate with being at home. And this _is_ my home.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I shouldn’t have to use magic if I don’t want to.” Sirius is about to argue that right away, when Remus repeats it more firmly, and adds, “I’ll clean up once I’ve finished what I’m working on. I _will_. You just have to give me a chance to -- you always do it first.”

“Fine.” Sirius doesn’t add that when the place isn’t tidied for an entire three weeks, surely Remus has had more than enough opportunity to tidy, because he doesn’t want this argument again.

Remus gives him a look that tells him he knows exactly what Sirius hasn’t said, and then smiles. “Wormtail did also mention something about incentive.”

“Wormtail lives with his mother, and probably still thinks that clean underwear grows in bedroom cupboards.”

“Even so,” Remus says, still smiling. “Don’t I at least get something for finishing my draft?”

 _Oh, right, **incentive**_ , he realises, as he goes to Remus. He is very definitely not going to think about Wormtail or Mrs. Pettigrew right now.

Remus grabs him and flattens across the table, before leaning over him. Sirius drops his scrip over the side and winds his arm around Remus’ neck, bringing him down to be kissed.

“Congratulations on the draft,” he says softly, when they come up for air.

“I only get one kiss?”

“I have to keep something back for when it’s published, don’t I?”

Remus makes an exaggerated pout at that. “But I want to finish my field work on bowtruckles and glumbumbles as well, and put the lot up for publication in one go. I don’t want the others thinking I’ve only got one paper in me.”

“I don’t think anybody thinks you’ve only got one in you,” he grins, raising his hips and grinding against Remus’.

“You’re right. And I _was_ in the middle of cleaning. Perhaps you should keep something back after all.”

Sirius kisses him again, sighing encouragingly when Remus starts undoing his robes. Even so, Remus pulls away once more.

“What are -- ” Sirius cuts off with a yelp as Remus taps his wand against Sirius’ bare hip and _something_ materialises inside him. “Remus!” he gasps, as Remus taps him again and the thing starts to move.

“I told you, I’ll get this all done. I just need the proper incentive,” Remus says. He pulls Sirius’ robes open and smiles down at him. “It’s a good thing you talked to McKinnon today, and an even better thing she had words with Wormtail, or I might never have been struck with this inspiration,” Remus adds. He strokes along Sirius’ thigh and moves back slightly to better appreciate the view as Sirius pants and tries to get that touch exactly where he wants it.

“Remus...”

“So you wait here for me while I finish up. I won’t be long.” Remus gives him another tap, making the thing move even faster, before he walks away.

Evidently, he is to be punished for talking to McKinnon, which means Remus is going to be occupied for quite a while.

Sirius grips the edge of the table with both hands, raises his hips to improve the angle and gives himself up to it.

He can hold out long enough, and at the very least, the flat had fucking better be _spotless_.

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and kudos are appreciated and treasured -- even (especially?) on a fic as old as this one!


End file.
